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From: aland@servio.slc.com (Alan Darlington)
Subject: Re: Java vs. Smalltalk vs. C++ vs. OO COBOL
Message-ID: <1996Jul6.191408.6082@gemstone.com>
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Date: Sat, 6 Jul 1996 19:14:08 GMT
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Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu comp.lang.smalltalk:40397 comp.lang.c++:198677 comp.lang.java:66500 comp.object:51524

Florin Mateoc <florinMateoc@wintergroup.com> writes:
<snip> 
> I like Smalltalk myself but I am afraid these vendors have given us several
> Smalltalks and not just one (competing with Java or C++).
> Yes, we have multi-platform Smalltalks and we have distributed objects but
> have you ever tried to port an application from one Smalltalk to another ?
> In C++ one could modify a class library to be able to compile it with a
> different compiler, there are class libraries written for multiple
> compilers, and even a standard class library.
> 
> Florin Mateoc

I'm afraid you are making a bad comparison here.  The Smalltalk language
is virtually identical in all the Smalltalks (it is so simple that there
is not much room for things to go different :-).

Having ported Smalltalk applications from one product to another, I know
that it is not easy.  But in C++, the best analogy is porting an
application from one class library to another.  This, I submit, is a
far more troublesome problem, and could potentially cause as much grief
as the Smalltalk port, even if you use the same C++ compiler.

  Cheers,
  Alan
    (standard disclaimer)



